The Power of Marketing

In light of the recent tragic events in Japan, here is a graphic that will challenge your perception of reality.

I know it challenged mine.

For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced…

I think that any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved. Perhaps it was advertising, or perhaps deliberate story telling by an industry. Or perhaps it was just the stories we tell one another in our daily lives. It’s sort of amazing, even to me, how much marketing colors the way we see the world–our reaction (either way) to this chart is proof of it.

Stunning and provocative graphic. If you click back through Seth Godin’s blog and look at the original stats from which this is derived it is even more telling. The public has a limited attention span and advertisers/marketers/political operatives have learned to seize the moment and work it to their advantage before the next news cycle. So sadly, nuclear power is demonized until there is another coal mine or oil spill disaster. Thoughtfulness has never been a part of mass media consumption, which is really too bad.

http://www.logobird.com Duane Kinsey

And unfortunately, most people are too lazy to think for themselves and equate the word of mass media as the truth.